The ‘free parking’ is a joke - when I arrived, it was crammed, and impossible to manoeuvre around. Too many commercial vehicles! I had to leave my car on a back street. The check-in was inept, and the reception staff smelled of cigarettes. The first floor lobby outside the lift stank like a toilet, and the carpet was filthy.
The room was grimy and also smelled deeply unpleasant. Like an old suit that dry-cleaning hadn’t freshened. The carpet had not been hoovered with care, and the desk had bits of food stuck to it. The switch of the table lamp had a ring of grime round it. One of the bedside lamps looked like it had been broken for a while, with black insulating tape covering the bulb-holder.
Dinner was nasty - I had fish and chips, on the basis that it was least likely to go wrong, but the fish was overcooked and greasy, the mushy peas soupy, and the thick-cut chips weren’t. Thick cut, that is - they were thin, tepid, and bizarrely chewy. Loud pop music blaring away in a way that could not be described as ‘the background’ didn’t help. The waiter was, however, lovely and took good care of me.
The kettle in the room was so filthy, I took it to reception and asked for a clean one, and after pointing out to the baffled receptionist that it was too dirty to use, he said ‘oh, well, I’ll clean it up for you’. Not the point!
The room looked out over a main road and was very noisy - what with the sound of the TV from next door, and all...the linens were white once, but had a grey cast and some odd dots of grey stuff stuck to them. The bathroom window, which also looked out over the main road, is frosted, but was covered only by a thin net curtain, which meant I had to wash in the dark to avoid giving passers-by a free peep-show. The window frame was also filthy with black mould.
The TV was tuned to the ‘adult section’ when I switched it on, which just told me everything I didn’t want to know.
I cut my stay short and left after one night - won’t be returning. less